mortiferæ
by itskathybabe
Summary: It's ironic how many life changing realizations you come upon after death.


**A/N: A little treat for my story followers that have been patiently waiting for Change. I apologize for its delay, I've already done a few future chapters, it's just going through some serious rewriting as I've caught a case of self-consciousness about my writing. I've had "mortiferæ" written for a while when I was feeling dark one a particular day but I never posted it anywhere. Enjoy this first look to the mini story.**

–"**mortiferæ" (morr-ti-frey-eye) is a loose Latin translation for "bring death."**

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**mortiferæ**

"_Disease, insanity, and death were the angels that attended my cradle, and since then have followed me throughout my life." -Edvard Munch_

**Preface **

_One year later…_

There are many speculations as to what death is like once you cross over. Let me be the first to tell you, you living people have it all wrong.

Death is _so_ bleak. What once were bright and vibrant colors are now muted and dull; black and white are seriously the only colors my dead eyes can decipher.

I miss the bright crisp oranges and reds I know would be splattered on the fallen leaves I can see littering the ground around me. I miss the bright blue sky. The blinding yellow sun and that burning sensation you get when you stare at it too long and you can still see its glare playing against your eyesight.

Just yesterday, I lost myself staring into the sun for a whole hour, trying to remember the exact shade of it. I didn't even flinch.

I'll give you a moment of sincerity though… it's one thing I think I miss the most. The colors, I mean.

Light at the end of the tunnel? It's bullshit. Let me give you two words: "fuck" and "that." There are no lights at the end of your tunnel. Serious-ly. No gates you have to pass through and no fiery hell you're damned to.

I've got this perpetual ringing in my ear that won't go away no matter how many times I bang my head against a wall. The world around me sounds as if it's been submerged under fifty feet of water and I haven't gotten used to it. I don't think I'll ever get used to this feeling of discomfort.

Some people— excuse me— some _spirits_, I sometimes see roaming around with a… just a… a lost look in their eyes. Like they don't know who they are anymore, what their name is, how they died, how they got there. They just… don't know _anything_. God knows how long they've been stuck on this "other side."

You can hear the living all around you. See them walk by, unknowing that they just walked through a ghost. They can never sense you back. Like, ever. Trust me I've tried everything.

Jeremy Gilbert is the exception for the rule, I don't exactly remember why he can see us, something about dying and coming back to life. Damn, doesn't _he_ have it easy. He's been dealing with some stuff from what I've noticed, but I have no reason to be bothering him. His sister does enough bothering for two.

It's an eternal hell though, seeing someone you once loved and trying to tell them you're okay. That everything is fine, that you're not gone. Not completely, anyways.

Screaming into a living's ear saying, "I'm here! Look at me! I'm right here!" and all you get back is silence and depression…

My mom can't see the tears fall down my face as I watch her weep over my empty grave almost every other morning. She can't hear my whispered words and the false confidence I try to make her feel, to make her understand that I will watch over her. Her baby girl isn't gone, and I don't think I'll be leaving any time soon.

She doesn't need to pray to God to keep an eye out on me in Heaven- because I'm not there.

I'm an apparition, a shimmering mirage in the wind. Every moving flicker you see at the edge of your eye sight, those sounds you hear in your house late at night, yeah, that's us. The Dead. We're not bad, not most of us anyways. We just want to be _heard_. Felt, seen, anything at all to know that we are still part of this world.

I've been hopelessly banging my fists against a barrier that will probably never budge. I don't even know how long it's been since I've crossed to this side of death. A day? A year? We ghosts, we don't have any semblance of time anymore because time is endless now in a way vampirism never was.

This strange silence of the world, the misery and isolation in this non-life I'm now living, _that's_ the real hell.

The other spirits, the other dead souls, they don't understand. This can't all be it. There has to be a way to go back. Jeremy did it once didn't he? He was human when he died, so maybe it was a little different… but, y'know, details.

Others have lost a hope I've been trying to cling on to for a while now. I recognize some faces, they were all vampires, or werewolves, witches. People who have died at the hands of anything supernatural related all end up here in this half-world.

The wind billows through the drab fall air but I'm left untouched, my very existence in this empty world defies the laws of nature as my hair remains intact and unmoving against the harsh storm that's brewing. My cliché white dress falls limp onto my sides, I'm not cold and I am not warm in any physical sense. I just… am. I'm numb.

Something about today, something about the dark clouds hovering ominously above the world I vacate, it's saddened me more than usual. The light I've once been told I exude has dimmed long ago, there's no light in this dark side. I can't be the light, not anymore. I can have hope, but I can't be naïve anymore.

Death has changed me. Toughened me up and opened my eyes to things I never dreamed myself doing.

This place, as empty and dreary as I'm making it out to be… _is_ _dangerous_. Every corner is a mystery and because none of us can die again it makes us more… vicious. Every corner you turn is a war zone. Tonight just happened to be quiet… too quiet.

I'm standing next to a bench, I don't bother sitting down on it because my feet don't get tired. Perks of being dead: I can stand and walk or run for hours on end and I won't feel sore, like, ever.

A shrill voice pierces through my musings and disrupts the roaring in my muddled ears, "I'm right here! Turn around! Just look at me! Why can't you see me? Help me! It's me, Elena! Can't you see me?"

Poor thing. Still in denial, I think sadly as I watch my friend run around like a headless chicken. Elena is a desperate one, but I've known that even before death. It's one thing to be hopeful, another problem entirely to be stupid.

Anyways, I'm standing next to a bench, overlooking the town square. Elena is standing on a street corner under an awning pathetically reaching out to the unreachable. Her frown depresses me as she desperately watches the men and women of Mystic Falls enter several open shops to shelter themselves from the storm.

I want to comfort her, but I am still on edge from the absolute quietness of the night. There's always someone out to get vengeance, those twelve witches are the ones I need to watch out for always.

I've been trying to keep away from Elena for a while now, she's sometimes like a siren. Her screams always bring everything dangerous closer and honestly, she's a hazard to be around. It's one of those life lessons you learn after you've already died.

I have to remember to look out for myself. I have to remember what happened _last_ _time _I didn't.

As the rain pours down, it pours straight through me, hitting me right in the eyes, but I don't need to blink it away. It just falls through, as if I'm not even there. Yeah, no, I actually think _that's_ the worst part. Not being able to feel the rain. Wow.

The square is fully empty now. The sky is as dark as my thoughts and Elena's walked through the wall of one of the stores. She likes surrounding herself with the living. I find her efforts moot.

The news had said it's a category four storm, one Mystic Falls has never seen before. I expect a few casualties as I watch the awning Elena had been standing under loudly rip away from the building and fly into the wind like a giant, ungraceful butterfly.

I stare at the bench and make my way over to it, sitting down onto the wet wood and making myself comfortable as I watch a few squirrels run up into their shelters in an old oak.

I don't hear the faint footsteps coming my way until it's too late and I am no longer alone on the bench. I turn my head, surprised to see the very same man who I had thought had run away to never return.

I would have gone with him, haunted him for a while, if he hadn't left so suddenly and with no trace.

"Caroline," he whispered into the empty air. By heart thrummed at the lilt of his baritone voice. I've actually missed it. That unwavering flame of hope flares up and warms me as I wonder if he knew I was sitting right next to him.

_I'm dead and he's calling out my name? _I wonder to myself. As I stare at him, I realize I actually missed him in the length of time I've been roaming this dead town since he's been gone.

"The rain always reminds me of you," the pelting water was hitting his face, and I assumed it wasn't very comfortable. He tried blinking the droplets out but I had a sinking feeling they were actually tears he was letting escape.

I'm shocked that's he's actually crying, I can smell the salt mixture in the air. I lean in really close to his face for a better look and I realize I've never seen him cry before… except for _that_ day.

My face is only millimeters away from his, and I don't feel bad about it. It's not like he'll know I'm so close. I have no friends here to judge me over my hopeless infatuation. No one to tell me I'm a dumb blonde who likes the attention from the bad boy. No one is here to tell me otherwise because no one _cares_.

Niklaus Mikaelson is no longer a man to be fear after you've already died.

His face is black and white, like everything else around me. I can count every pore on his face, every scraggly whisker on his cheek, every little wrinkle around his eyes and mouth.

His eyes are dark grey, and I'm disgusted to realize I have forgotten the exact shade of it. Were they blue? Green? Both? I can't remember, why can't I remember such a small detail?

I realize then that I've gradually been forgetting a lot of things. Like what my favorite food was before, or if I ever liked the feeling of the wind against my face, or why I'm wearing a plain white dress in the afterlife.

I break away from his face, sickened and disappointed that I forgot something so simple as his eye color. I fell onto my side, pathetically curling up like a small child into his lap as I tried to just _feel_ him; the only person other than my mom who still cried for me.

I was so empty inside, not in a heartbroken way, just like… my entire body is just so indifferent to everything. My numb nerve endings couldn't feel his arm as I tried to grip onto it like a life saver.

I needed him. And don't you think it's so horrible how you come to life-altering realizations _after_ you've already died?

"I miss you, sweetheart" he whispered, reaching up to drag his hands over his tired face. He seemed more worn down than usual. Dark circles and an unshaven beard marred his usually perfect features. How long has it been since he's shaved? Fed? Slept? How long has it been since I've been in his presence?

The answers to all those questions: _a while._

"Hey, I miss you too," I said a little louder than necessary, against my better judgment, hoping that for just this once I can be heard by him.

"I'm trying my best for you…" Klaus spoke softly, pressing his curled fist into his left eye to keep from hollering out.

Moments like these are when I wish I could cry.

Catatonic and hopeless, I lay still on his lap, staring up at his drenched face as he hung his head over me. I hover my fingers over his sallow face and wonder why he's so devastated over my death.

A once powerful man weeping for a dead girl who had barely gave him the time of day. Why didn't she just give him a chance?

He looked so sad…

"I'm sorry," I confessed, caressing my thumb across his quivering lips. "I'm sorry, I should have told you how I felt before—" I mumbled. "Klaus." I pleaded, holding his head lightly in my grip, if I budged too hard I'd end up going straight through him.

"Come back to me, please," he begged into the silent night. A lonely man sitting alone in the rain while other families sat around inside their homes, comforted around the warmth in their lives… I knew no warmth anymore, and I instinctively knew he had none either.

"Come back to me!" he screamed into the empty night, saliva and tears spewed out of his face with the loud howl as he cursed into the night, broken hearted and utterly hopeless.

"Klaus" I warned loudly, fighting against the restrictions of the barrier between my world and his. I sincerely hoped no one would notice his hunched figure completely lose it, "stop it!"

"Come back to me!" he screamed again, his eyes wild as he fisted his hair in his hands, pulling and pulling until she saw a clump came out from the roots. The shade of his eyes lightened somewhat as his pupil's dilated, fangs sprung out of his unhinged jaw and I had to stifle a gasp at the unexpectedness.

"Stop it." I yelled back, placing my hands softly over his. "Stop it!"

"Caroline!" he bellowed out. He stood up, his body going right through me and I shimmered with the disturbance to my spirit's figure. Klaus ran into the night at vampire speed and it was almost laughable how easily I can catch up with him now in this state.

Standing back nervously in the middle of a known Virginia camping spot, I watched over him as he launched a few trees out of their roots and hurdled them into the darkness, all the while his bones broke and reformed until a large dark wolf stood in his place.

"Oh no," I whispered as I kept running alongside him and hoping no one was stupid enough to be out camping tonight during this storm.

A few minutes later, he attacked a few unsuspecting hikers until there was nothing but torn clothing and chunks of meat littered along the kicked up mud and wet foliage. Their screams echoed through the dark wilderness and I winced as he licked his paws clean after his demented slaughter.

Klaus roared into the night as I watched him heave his chest from his tantrum. Quickly scanning the surrounding area, I made sure no other spirits would attack while I remained distracted by the gruesome scene.

Walking up to him, I wordlessly inspected his bloody fur and watched in quiet fascination as he began to shift forms again, naked as the day he was born.

"I'll fix this." He promised after a moment of silence. I kept my eyes averted, shameful that his would be the first naked body I'd see since I've died. "I'll bring you back, Caroline."

My eyes snapped to his when the words registered in my slow brain. A determined glint sparked in his eyes. He was staring off into the distance, speaking to me unknowing that I could hear every whispered declaration he made.

A twig snapped somewhere behind us, and as we both turned to look I gasped in astonishment at the sight before us.


End file.
